Linda, As in the Linda Murder

34

The voluntary DNA sampling programme in Växjö and the surrounding district seemed to be a real success. They now had almost four hundred samples. The National Forensics Lab had set aside resources for the Linda murder and almost half of those who had submitted samples had been discounted from the investigation.

‘What about our fellow officers and those students?’ Olsson asked.

‘It’s going okay,’ Knutsson said, looking at his files. ‘We’ve had eight samples. All of them voluntary. The first four we received have already been discounted. There are just two we haven’t got.’

‘Yes, and I’ve promised to sort out Claesson’s, so it’s on its way,’ Olsson said. ‘No need to worry. I’ll take care of it myself,’ he added quickly.

‘Right, so that leaves one student that we don’t have a sample from,’ Knutsson said, pretending to consult his notes. ‘Let’s see. He was in the same class as Linda, and was in the nightclub on the night in question. An Erik Roland Löfgren, according to college records.’

‘I’ve tried to reach him by phone. Several times,’ Sandberg said.

‘How are you getting on?’ Bäckström asked. Just tell us what the fuck you’re up to.

‘Well, it’s the middle of the holidays, but I did eventually manage to get hold of him at the end of last week,’ Sandberg said. ‘He was with his parents at their summer house on Öland, but he promised to get in touch as soon as he gets back to Växjö.’

‘That’s very generous of him,’ Bäckström grunted. ‘So when can we expect to see him, then? When the college term starts in the autumn, perhaps? The simplest solution is surely to ask our colleagues in Kalmar to go over to Öland and take a sample.’

‘I promise I’ll chase him up again,’ Sandberg said. ‘I promise. Don’t let’s forget that this is about people volunteering. I mean, he’s not a suspect, after all.’

‘Just get it sorted,’ Bäckström said. ‘Explain to our little student what this is all about. Otherwise I’ll go and get him myself, and then we’ll be talking blood samples rather than cotton-buds.’

‘I’m sure it’ll sort itself out,’ Olsson said. ‘It’ll be fine. Don’t let’s get wound up about such a small detail.’

‘I’m not at all wound up,’ Bäckström said. ‘Just tell the fucker that if he wants to join the police, he’d better stop acting like a common criminal under suspicion of committing some sort of crap. Just a bit of kind-hearted advice. And if there’s nothing else, then I at least have a lot of work to do.’

That afternoon Olsson asked to talk to Bäckström in private. ‘I could do with a bit of wise advice from an experienced colleague,’ he said.

The flasher, Bäckström thought. You’ve asked for a DNA sample, and now he’s hanged himself in his attic, and you want to have a good cry on Uncle Bäckström’s shoulder.

It turned out to be a rather different problem. There was a lot of anxiety in Växjö after Linda’s murder, particularly among young women, and, seen from a social point of view, this had actually diminished the quality of life of a large group of individuals.

‘Do people actually dare to go out and have fun any more without running the constant risk of being attacked?’ Olsson wondered.

‘Interesting question,’ Bäckström said.

‘It’s many years since we in the police have been able to guarantee anything like that,’ Olsson said. ‘Our resources aren’t even sufficient to cover the essentials any longer.’

If there are actually any essentials in a shithole like this, Bäckström thought. Badly parked cars and missing dogs? ‘Yes, it’s a bad situation,’ he agreed with a sigh.

‘There’s a group of us who’ve been trying to come up with an alternative solution, and it was actually Lo who came up with the idea,’ Olsson said.

‘I’m all ears, I can assure you.’ Bäckström nodded seriously and leaned forward. Our very own battery hen. I can hardly wait, he thought.

‘Växjö Men Against Violence to Women,’ Olsson said. ‘Ordinary men, fellow human beings, fellow menfolk, if I can put it like that... someone in the group suggested that phrase, “fellow menfolk”... a fellow citizen, who happens to be a man, patrolling the streets in the evening and at night, whose very presence in the urban environment would raise the level of security. For instance, they could offer to escort single women home from a nightclub...’

What a fucking brilliant pick-up technique, Bäckström thought. Even Lo herself could probably find a short-sighted fellow manfolk that she could lure up into her bedroom and give an unsatisfactory ride.

‘What do you think, Bäckström?’

‘Sounds like a great idea,’ Bäckström said. Christ, how stupid can you get? he thought.

‘You don’t think there’s a risk that it could be seen as some sort of vigilante group?’ Olsson said, suddenly seeming rather worried. ‘Or, even worse, that frivolous individuals might exploit the plan to their own advantage?’

‘I don’t think there’s much risk of that,’ Bäckström said. ‘Providing you have adequate supervision of those taking part, I mean.’ And take care not to let in men like our colleagues Randy Karlsson and the flasher.

‘Really,’ Olsson said, looking both relieved and happy. ‘I don’t suppose you could let us have your thoughts when our little group holds its next meeting?’

‘Of course I’d be happy to share my opinion. Goes without saying,’ Bäckström said. ‘If you think I might have something to contribute,’ he added modestly. I can hardly wait, he thought.

Adolfsson and von Essen’s investigation of Erik Roland Löfgren had evidently continued apace over the weekend. A number of troubling details were starting to pile up around the trainee police officer. According to what he himself had told several of his male classmates, he had been having sex with Linda all spring, right up to the end of term in the middle of June, but because he was the sort of young man who valued his freedom he had chosen to keep their relationship secret. According to Löfgren, Linda had started to get a bit too clingy and demanding for his taste. But there hadn’t been any dramatic scenes, nothing of that sort; he had simply explained to her in a friendly way that in future she would have to take her place in the long queue of interested young women. How she reacted to this was unknown. Apparently she hadn’t said a word about it to her girlfriends, and she didn’t seem to have acquired a new boyfriend or lover, if that was what he had actually been.

‘So what he told Sandberg during the interview wasn’t true?’ Bäckström said.

‘No,’ Adolfsson said, shaking his head. ‘And it’s not just idle boasting either. That young man seems to have gone through the women of this town like a bulldozer. We’ve spoken to several of them. He seems to have slept with half of Småland.’

‘Her last known sexual partner,’ von Essen said. ‘Doesn’t that usually give some sort of clue to the perpetrator in cases like this?’

‘Good,’ Bäckström exclaimed. ‘This is better than good, this is serious shit.’ That aristocratic poof obviously isn’t a complete cretin after all, he thought. ‘Good work, boys. If we’re in luck, then it’s no more complicated than this. So what do the women say? Does he normally fuck about with them?’

‘What, the cosy smell of leather, latex and restraints? That’s not the sort of thing people talk about in a town like this,’ von Essen said, even though he too was born and bred in the Småland countryside. ‘But he doesn’t seem to carry the necessary equipment round with him when he’s out having fun. If I can put it like that.’

Löfgren was young, well built, in good shape, charming and extremely attractive. Considering that he was only twenty-five years old, he also seemed to have accumulated a great deal of experience and considerable talent in the area of sex. According to one of their female informants, he was also as well-endowed as the myth about black men demanded. And an obvious central protagonist in the nightmares of white men.

‘Ronaldo’s a proper sex machine,’ she had said, smiling fondly. ‘If you really want to fuck your brains out, you couldn’t do any better. It’s big. And very thick.’

Like a good shotgun, Adolfsson had thought when he spoke to her. It takes practice, talent, and a good stock of ammunition.

‘A bit like you, Patrik,’ the informant had suddenly said. ‘But the problem with you is that you’re very likeable as well. Do you remember the time you wanted to show me the hunting tower you were in when you shot your first elk?’

‘If we could stick to the subject,’ Adolfsson had said. Ideally to things I can actually include in my report, he had thought.

Unusual sex? Deviant sex? Kinky sex? Bondage? Sadomasochism?

‘Not with me, at any rate,’ the informant had said with a shrug. ‘Mind you, if I’d wanted to do anything like that, I’m pretty sure he would have agreed. He certainly wouldn’t have backed down. I don’t think I would even have had to ask. He’d have worked it out anyway. Sex is his thing, after all.’

They hadn’t got much further than that.

‘I’d put money on him being a sick, sadistic bastard,’ Bäckström said greedily. And it’ll be obvious when we go through his wardrobe, he thought. The familiar tingling was much stronger now.

Bäckström had started to settle into his new existence at the Town Hotel in Växjö. The worst of his grief for Egon had subsided unexpectedly quickly, and in recent days he’d hardly spared him a thought. His hotel room was always freshly cleaned and his bed freshly made when he returned from his arduous daily activities at the police station. All he needed to remember before he left each morning was to throw the towels in a heap on the bathroom floor so the environmental extremists among the staff didn’t get the idea that they could just hang them up again, and actually had to replace them with nice clean ones. It was probably high time to hand all his used clothes in again to be washed and ironed. Which was entirely in order this time, seeing as he had got them all sweaty in the course of his duties.

He had established his evening routine fairly quickly. First a cold beer as soon as he got in the door. Then a short nap, another beer in his room, then a bit of food. Before going to bed and falling asleep, a bit of instructional conversation with his colleague, Rogersson, a few more beers, and possibly one or two discreet little snifters. And, as a bit of spice to everyday life, the now regular conversations with his very own reporter from local radio. So that she got the chance to complain that he never seemed to have time to meet her, even though she had sworn blind that they wouldn’t talk shop.

Like this evening, for instance.

‘I’ve got a lot on at the moment,’ Bäckström said.

‘Promises, promises, Bäckström,’ Carin sighed.

She must have heard about the super-salami, she’s so damn keen, Bäckström thought, as he heard a familiar knock at his door. ‘Got to go,’ he said. ‘There’s something I need to deal with. Speak soon.’

Rogersson was carrying a whole six-pack of chilled lager, and was apparently in an extremely good mood.

‘I’ve just been talking to our colleagues up in Stockholm,’ he said, grinning with the whole of his skinny, pock-marked face. ‘They told me an incredible story about Chinny that I think my dear colleague Superintendent Åström would appreciate a very great deal.’

‘I’m listening,’ Bäckström said. Just watch yourself, you old drunk, he thought.

The story that Rogersson told him included all the usual additional material that stories accumulate as soon as they get passed from one mouth to another. This particular story had passed through several mouths on its way from the bathroom mirror of the Grand Hotel in Lund to Rogersson’s keen ears.

‘Absolute carnage. Apparently he shot up half the hotel,’ he concluded with a cheery grin five minutes later.

‘He must have got his chin caught in the trigger guard when he was cleaning his gun,’ Bäckström suggested. ‘If it had been you or me, we’d be sitting in a cell down in Malmö by now.’

‘Who says life’s fair?’ Rogersson said, shaking his head and pouring the last drops from the first can into his glass.

‘Does Dolly Parton sleep on her stomach?’ Bäckström agreed.

‘Funny that there hasn’t been a word about it in the papers,’ Rogersson said.

‘I’m sure that can be arranged,’ Bäckström said with a grin. ‘I’ll have a word with our good colleague Åström and see if he can mention it to some of our more obliging vermin.’